Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I thought about Equestria again. It has been a whole month since I heard your story, but I have been trying to get Mommy to tell it again. She won't, though, so I guess I will just have to remember. You don't have meanies in Equestria, so if we lived there we would be able to travel around and see new places. I was born on the farm, and have never left, not even with Mommy or Daddy. Only Daddy and Jackfruit ever leave, and they come back with all sorts of things, like new farming tools and shells for Daddy's gun. The gun is something I have been seeing a lot lately, because the mean ponies have been coming by me here a lot more often. Daddy now carries his gun most of the time, even inside our house. Once I tried to pick it up, but Daddy slapped it out of my mouth and said, "Don't touch, Raggy, that's not for foals." Daddy treats me like a baby, even though I am already seven whole years old. He says that the day I get my cutie mark will be the day I will be a mare and be ready to work on the farm with everypony else. Daddy's cutie mark isn't a cactus though, it is some kind of stick with a tuft of black hair with a red spot on one end. He called it a "paintbrush", but I have never seen something like that before. I asked Daddy what it means, and he said it means that a talented painter, but that he hasn't had time for art in a long time. I don't know what he was talking about. Mommy's cutie mark makes more sense than Daddy's. Her cutie mark is a little round cactus with short needles. Mommy told me that she got it while working on the farm when she was just seven. She said it means that she is good at harvesting and planting cactus. She is the only pony in my family whom enjoys farming cactus. Mommy is usually nice and understanding, but when she drinks too much “magic juice” she gets mean and yells or gives me a spank on the flank. My sister wouldn't ever do something mean. Prickly Pear is too nice to do that. Pear's cutie mark is also a cactus like Mommy's, but Pear has three cacti, and each has a flower. I don't remember when she got it, but I think I wasn't even born yet. She is seven whole years older than me, after all. She said that she doesn't like working on the farm, though, and that she really isn't that good at it. I asked her how she couldn't be good at farming because of her cactus cutie mark. She told me that her cutie mark actually has nothing to do with cacti or flowers; what it really means is that she can make something ugly look nice, by adding something pretty to it. It made sense, because she is always fixing up our home and looking for ways to make things look nice. Last month, she decorated our dining room with cactus flowers and painted the walls. Even though the paint is the same shade of cactus green, it looked nicer because the old paint was getting chipped and cracked. Prickly Pear is sweet and thoughtful, and loves to help the rest of us with anything. Jackfruit, on the other hoof, is not very fun to be around. Jackfruit is three years older than me, and his cutie mark is a steaming pot of soup. I remember when he got the mark two years ago. It happened right after he helped Daddy make the best cactus soup I have ever tasted. Cactus soup always tastes yucky, but Jackfruit's soup tasted the least yucky. He loves making food with cactus, but says how he would prefer to cook something else. Mommy said that there is nothing else he could prepare because we couldn't grow any other ingredients. Jackfruit hates harvesting cactus, but Mommy and Daddy make him do it anyway. He used to be sad and break down crying a lot, but now he just keeps working dully with a bored expression on his face. The only thing that cheers him up is cooking. I hope that working on the farm doesn't make me as drab as Jackfruit. I asked Daddy if I would have to harvest and plant cactus like Jackfruit, and he told me that I will have to work in the farm, too, no matter what my cutie mark turns out to be. I only hope that my talent is cactus farming like Mommy, so I can be happy.
From,
Ragamuffin